2024-01-10 - Lemmy Release v0.19.2 - More Federation Fixes
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We just deployed the latest version of Lemmy 0.19.2 where the github code includes a possible fix for the outgoing federation issues we have been having.

But lets see before we celebrate. Help us test if outgoing federation seems to work now by making comments, posts and upvotes and see if they appear on other instances.

Of course if the other instances are on Lemmy 0.19.0 or 0.19.1, they could have issues with outgoing federation still until they update.

Release notes for 0.19.2: https://join-lemmy.org/news/2024-01-10_-_Lemmy_Release_v0.19.2_-_More_Federation_Fixes

  • mrmanager@lemmy.todayOPM
    3·
    10 months ago

    Yeah true, it’s always something. :) I used to be on irc too back in the day, but sadly not anymore. But the worse big tech becomes, the more we will want to go back to other tech that didn’t bother us and felt good to use.

    • tal@lemmy.today
      2·
      10 months ago

      Just a wild thought, but are you still running that “restart lemmy periodically” cron job that you put in to deal with the earlier outbound federation problems? I am thinking that maybe the lemmy server software does not deal well with being shut down when it’s trying to fetch a comment, and after it comes back up, never actually tries getting the comment a second time. That might explain why lemmy.today is seeing random comments not being pulled over, but it’s not (at least immediately) apparent on other instances. I don’t know what else would be special about lemmy.today.

      I mean, it’d still be a bug in the lemmy server software, just something that maybe lemmy.today could be tickling more than other instances are if it’s frequently restarting.

      EDIT: Though if that’s the cause, if it’s also in earlier versions, that wouldn’t explain why I hadn’t noticed this earlier, when lemmy.today was running 0.19.1. I could have missed it in the Web UI, maybe, but it’s pretty obvious when using Jerboa – all those errors in place of comments – and I think I would have seen it.

      • mrmanager@lemmy.todayOPM
        3·
        10 months ago

        We dont have anything restarting the server automatically, but you are on to something.

        There have been occurances of the lemmy software and postgres restarting now and then since the update (several times per day). Postgres memory usage has been enormous, and we turned off the extra web user interfaces for a while to see if its still happening. So far its actually looking a lot better and memory usage looks stable, so maybe our hunch is right…

        • tal@lemmy.today
          2·
          9 months ago

          There’s some other issue with posts not propagating to lemmy.today. I’m not sure at what point this arose; I’ve only just noticed it.

          I’m currently subscribed to !retrogaming@lemmy.world.

          This is lemmy.today’s view of that community:

          https://lemmy.today/c/retrogaming@lemmy.world

          The newest post to be visible is “Death Knights of Krynn [MS DOS] Intro on Creative Music System/Game Blaster”, visible here:

          https://lemmy.today/post/5957815

          As of this writing, that post was five days old.

          However, actually looking at the community on lemmy.world, there have been newer posts there. These have not propagated.

          https://lemmy.world/c/retrogaming?dataType=Post&page=1&sort=New

          As of this writing, there are four, the oldest of which is also five days old (so presumably, whatever caused the issue happened at least five days back, possibly exactly five days back). None of these have propagated to lemmy.today via federation.

          https://lemmy.world/post/11464649

          The Quest To Preserve Japanese Feature Phone Games

          https://lemmy.world/post/11489415

          Sly Cooper - What Happened to This Iconic Platformer?

          https://lemmy.world/post/11526052

          My Phantasy Star Online dilemma

          https://lemmy.world/post/11531592

          A more relaxing way to play text-based games?

          The newer posts have propagated to some other instances that I have looked at, including lemmy.ml (0.19.3):

          retrogaming@lemmy.world on lemmy.ml

          feddit.de (0.19.2):

          retrogaming@lemmy.world on feddit.de

          feddit.uk (0.19.2):

          retrogaming@lemmy.world on feddit.uk

          Both lemmy.today and lemmy.world are reporting that they are federated with each other:

          https://lemmy.today/instances

          https://lemmy.world/instances

          That is making me a little suspicious that whatever is broken is somehow specific to lemmy.today (and apparently an ongoing problem, not a one-off, since it’s not just a single missing post).

          I also have one request. Would it be possible to create a “lemmy.today community”? This could serve as a point for people to discuss or report issues on the lemmy.today instance (like this one). The closest thing we have right now is the “announcements” community, but post creation there is (understandably) locked for non-moderators. I’d do it myself, but I think that it’d probably be more appropriate were an instance admin the moderator. And while adding comments to this post is probably the best existing way to both notify you that there is an issue and make anyone else on the instance who might be experiencing the problem aware of it, I feel like most people aren’t likely to go hunting into a recent update announcement to see if there are any issues on the instance or try to troubleshoot or help each other. I’d just message you directly with issues, but then other people can’t see discussion or help or even be made aware that there is an issue.

          On lemm.ee, there is such a community, with the name of !meta@lemm.ee.

          I checked several other large instances, but wasn’t able to find a similar-such community (I was looking to see if any convention had emerged as to what name to use for “discussion about the local instance”). I’m not sure that “meta” is the best term to use (I think it might be clearer to use the instance name or something, like !lemmytoday@lemmy.today, to make it clear that it’s about the instance) but “meta” is short, and it has uptake from at least one instance.

          Thanks.

          • mrmanager@lemmy.todayOPM
            2·
            9 months ago

            Hi!

            I looked and I can see the posts if I sort by New (default sort is Top Day I think):

            https://lemmy.today/c/retrogaming@lemmy.world?dataType=Post&sort=New

            That page has all the posts you mention above from the looks of it? Correct me if im wrong or if Im misunderstanding something.

            And of course we can create a lemmytoday community, sounds like a great idea. A place to bring up issues about the instance. I agree with you about the name also. Meta doesnt sound good, and also its related to that Zuckerberg place… :)

            • tal@lemmy.today
              1·
              9 months ago

              Hi!

              I looked and I can see the posts if I sort by New (default sort is Top Day I think)

              Hmm. I’m sure that I checked sorted by New.

              investigates further

              Okay, this is more confusing. It looks like what happens is that when I am logged in to lemmy.today, I cannot see the newer posts via lemmy.today. When I am not logged in, I can. That means that it can’t be a federation problem, that something else is going on.

              I’ve got no idea what would cause that. I don’t have my account set up to block anything at all. I don’t think that there’s some kind of remote per-user blacklist or even if there were, any idea why I’d be on it.

              considers

              If there is some sort of blacklist, I assume that I wouldn’t be able to comment there.

              checks

              It looks like I can comment in the community there just fine, and that a comment made on lemmy.today promptly propagates to lemmy.world:

              https://lemmy.world/comment/7332440

              Hmm. Well, now I am definitely puzzled.

              If you don’t mind me asking, when you viewed the page and were successfully able to see the newer posts, were you logged in to lemmy.today? I’m half-inclined to go create a second account on lemmy.today to see whether it is also affected, but if your account is impacted as well, that’s at least one more data point, and then I’m not just creating throwaway accounts.

              My understanding is that lemmy very recently got per-user instance blocking added as a feature – kbin has had this for some time – and I am wondering if maybe something might not be working correctly related to that. I can’t imagine what else would cause the user account involved to be an input.

              Thank you for looking at this.

              EDIT: Maybe if there is something in the stack that caches generated webpages and those aren’t being invalidated, since user might be an input there, but then…no, that can’t be it, because I also don’t see the newer posts in Jerboa.

              • mrmanager@lemmy.todayOPM
                1·
                9 months ago

                Hi,

                I just checked and I see the same thing both logged in and logged out. Try clearing your cookies for lemmy.today completely, maybe its something weird going on with those? They changed authentication code in 0.19-something.

                • tal@lemmy.today
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  My apologies. This may just be a combination of an error on my part and Lemmy not working as I had thought it worked.

                  There are two retrogaming communities, one on lemmy.world and one on kbin.social. I had thought that I was subscribed to both, but I was only subscribed to the one on kbin.social. lemmy uses subscriptions to determine whether to cause posts to propagate.

                  What I still don’t understand is why being logged is a factor. I definitely could see the posts when not logged in, so they made it to lemmy.today.

                  I just subscribed with my lemmy.today account, made a post with another account (on kbin.social), then unsubscribed and made another post with that second account. Both posts were visible to my account.

                  So I still don’t understand why being logged in is a factor for the earlier posts, but at the time that I was seeing the problem, I wasn’t subscribed, and lemmy doesn’t guarantee that propagation happens in that scenario, so I’m not going to complain about that.

                  thinks

                  Maybe when you browse a remote community not logged in – since it’s not possible for a guest user to subscribe – lemmy fetches the posts directly when the community is viewed, rather then having them pushed to it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to do much as a guest user with remote communities. And if nobody on lemmy.today was subscribed, that would explain the lack of popagation. That’d produce that behavior, where a guest user can see posts, but a logged-in user can’t unless they’re subscribed.

                  I don’t know why different logged-in accounts would see different sets of posts, but.

                  Well, I’m sorry for bothering you. Probably just user error, and me being too ready to flag something as a bug after seeing earlier federation breakage. Thanks for your time.

                  • mrmanager@lemmy.todayOPM
                    2·
                    9 months ago

                    Its ok, Im happy if you find a bug in Lemmy so we can report it to the developers. There are many bugs on their github issues page, so I wouldnt be surprised if you encounter some… :)